Modern Art Theory - Dissenters from Abstract Expressionism

Critics and theorists who took issue with Abstract Expressionist art rejected its artistic value constitute a diverse group in the canon of 20th-century Modern art. For this reason, they are generally hard to define in collective terms. Some artist-critics, such as Fairfield Porter and Willem de Kooning, periodically questioned the value of Abstract Expressionism but did not outright oppose it in any manner. Others delivered highly outspoken critiques of Abstract Expressionism and even the mere use of abstraction in art.

English art critic John Ruskin drew praise and censure alike in the early 19th century for championing the paintings of J.M.W. Turner, whose quasi-Impressionistic scenes were perceived by many formal academics as meaningless splatters. But Ruskin also believed himself a morally superior tastemaker when it came to the fine arts. In 1858, he reportedly burned a large number of artists' sketchbooks that were in the possession of England's National Gallery, decreeing that they were "grossly obscene" and could not "lawfully be in anyone's possession." He saved two of the sketchbooks, but "only as evidence of a failing mind."

Ruskin was very much a formalist, but his views concerning Turner's paintings rank as some of the first dissenting analyses in the world of fine art, and they would later have an indirect influence on the 20th-century New York art world.

One notable individual who had a more direct influence on 20th-century art critics was Dada founder Tristan Tzara. In his Dada manifesto, Tzara claimed "to recognize no formal theory," rejecting any and all philosophy that purported to understand and impose some sense of academic order on the arts.

The individual who first brought anti-Abstract Expressionism into the public sphere was arguably the New York Times critic John Canaday. In 1959, Canaday wrote a scathing review entitled "Happy New Year" in which he conceded that Abstract Expressionism was an acceptable style for the times, but derided most abstract artists as "fakes" and "charlatans" who were simply imitating the earlier abstractions of Kandinsky and Miró.

	JOHN CANADAY Canaday's career was marked by a conservative streak that led him to rail against Abstract Expressionism and higher-education art departments. The latter, Canaday claimed, had been brainwashed by Greenbergian formalism into revering all abstract art. Canaday did not share this reverence, and he was particularly skeptical of the New York School artists, many of whom Canaday considered copycats. Additionally, Canaday argued that people like Rothko and Newman were dull artists who didn't derive as much as they could from living in a city like New York. "New York is always called an exciting city," wrote Canaday, "and so it is. But the things that make it exciting also make it monotonous if they are not tied to something deeper than surface movement and color. That is what I look for in Abstract Expressionist painting and do not find, and that is why I find it monotonous."  Learn More
	FAIRFIELD PORTER Porter managed to make a name for himself as a representational painter during an era when abstraction reigned supreme. He was also one of the first critics to recognize the unique talent of Willem de Kooning. Of abstract painting, he once revealed that "One reason I never became an abstract painter is that I used to see Clement Greenberg regularly and we always argued .. he said [of] de Kooning (who was painting the women), 'You can't paint this way nowadays.' And I thought: who the hell is he to say that? He said, 'You can't paint figuratively today.' And I thought: if that's what he says I can't do, that's all I will do. I might have become an abstract painter except for that." Whereas other critics used qualified value judgments to justify their critiques of abstract art Porter resisted painting in an abstract style simply as a matter of pride.  Learn More
	WILLEM DE KOONING Although de Kooning is widely known in the canon of Abstract Expressionism as one of the leading "Action Painters," he firmly believed in maintaining some semblance of representation in his abstract paintings. He once famously remarked that "Even abstract shapes must have a likeness." De Kooning also happened to be one of the few New York School artists who had received a formal training in art history, which informed his traditional approach of using landscapes and posing women for his work.  Learn More
	PHILIP GUSTON Guston's artistic career as an abstractionist followed a predictable path until the late 1960s, when he inexplicably abandoned abstraction in favor of drawing cartoonish figures. However, Guston had always maintained an outspoken and controversial philosophy about the nature of abstract art, insisting that the medium of painting was intrinsically impure. He once remarked in a public discussion, "There is something ridiculous and miserly in the myth we inherit from abstract art: That painting is autonomous, pure and for itself - therefore we habitually analyze its ingredients and define its limits. But painting is impure. It is the adjustment of impurities which forces its continuity. We are image-makers and image-ridden. There are no wiggly or straight lines." While Guston's outlook could be categorized as that of a standard non-formalist, the sudden nature of his shift in artistic practice and philosophy was a grand gesture of dissent.  Learn More
	ROBERT HUGHES Hughes is a highly regarded critic who made his mark in the late 1970s when he argued that the "death" of Abstract Expressionism had coincided with the suicide of Mark Rothko. His reasoning was that Rothko's death had indirectly led to a new era of greediness and commodification in the world of fine art, causing art's monetary values to reach astronomical levels. Hughes argued that this new era had warped people's ability to assign value to art based on any aesthetic elements, so all that remained was a painting's market value.  Learn More